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Mainly, we'll be scrutinizing Google's cost-per-click trends, which took a dive last quarter. Google management shrugged it off, saying the blame fell on foreign exchange rates, and the combined impact of a bunch of tweaks they made to ad formats. Okay — but if cost per click doesn't see any kind of a rebound, analysts will ask plenty of questions about what it means for Google's results long-term.
A couple of the analysts who expect an earnings beat think the upside comes, at least in part, from a modest improvement in cost per click.
But really? The bottom line is this is a first quarter, worth a couple billion less in revenue than the seasonally strong holiday quarter was. Even if it's a pretty good quarter, the impact will be limited.
What does matter is what's coming. And the biggest thing coming down the pike for Google is the closing of its Motorola Mobility acquisition. When the deal was announced last summer, the company said it should close in late 2011 or early 2012. That means it should close in the next two months, pending regulatory approvals in China and Taiwan.
Most acquisitions fail, so the fair way to look at this is as a potential train wreck.
Here's a look at the oncoming train: Motorola Mobility had revenue of $13.1 billion in 2011, and a net loss of $249 million. Fewer than half of the 42 million phones Motorola sold in 2011 were even smartphones — which suggests there's a big, expensive chunk of Motorola's business that Google should probably sell or shutter immediately.
Whether Google will actually do that — and what it will do with Motorola's mildly profitable but stalling set top box business ($226 million operating profit on $3.5 million in 2011) — is a big, big issue. And we're not going to get answers today, because Google doesn't technically own it yet.
Put it all together, and it's hard to get too worked up about Google's results today, good or bad.


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Last year we debuted digiBike* as the online version of IceBike*, designed to let us connect with customers in a world where face-to-face meetings had been put on hold. With the latest news about COVID variants urging caution once again, we’ve decided to choose the digiBike* format for the second time in 2022.
Madison is delighted to announce distribution of O’Neal motocross apparel in the UK. The deal will see Madison hold the O’Neal range in the UK, making it easier for dealers to get hold of the kit and remove many of the duty/shipment issues experienced post-Brexit.
Built for those who never compromise, Shimano’s premium R9200 series moves to 12-speed Di2-only, disc or rim-brake set-up with wireless shifters, faster derailleur operation, larger 54-40T chain rings and 11-34T cassettes.
Series includes a new power meter, SERVO WAVE brake technology and a new line-up of tubeless and tubular wheels.

domain: news


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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) as a speculative venture has been a serious hot-button for the last few months now, but there are some analysts out there beginning to wonder if the Emperor is as smartly-tailored as he claims to be, or merely as naked as he looks. Joining the Greek chorus of concerned analysts is Jefferies, who pulled a move increasingly familiar in analyst circles. It not only cut Tesla's rating, but it also raised its price target on Tesla shares.
The Case for Cutting and Raising Together
Jefferies analysts cut Tesla's rating from the previous rating of “buy” to “hold,” and at the same time, hiked Tesla's price target from its now-clearly ludicrous level of $600 per share to a now-much more reasonable $800. Given that the stock closed yesterday at $799.91, and is trading at $793.70 as of this writing, the price target hike was likely reasonable.
The rating cut, however, came with a lot more than raw numbers behind it. Jefferies analysts noted that they wanted a better look at potential profitability for the company, as well as more information about its upcoming “battery day” event. Valuations, as Jefferies analysts who got together on a note mentioned, needed to be connected to basic fundamentals like overall market size and potential profitability.
Still, Plenty Going for Tesla, Though
The Jefferies analysts noted that Tesla did have visible positives, including the fact that it was gaining ground in electric vehicles at a time when “legacy OEMs” were having to face some hard choices in the overall strategy. In fact, some were even looking to Tesla as a potential supplier to other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the market.
Yet most are looking to April when it comes to talking Tesla; the company's upcoming “battery day”, in which it offers up a look at its battery technology and near-term capability therein, is set to provide much of the desired visibility analysts are looking for, and hopefully will produce positive results while it's at it.
Will Tesla Short-Circuit Before Battery Day?
While Tesla has some clear advantages to its credit, it's also got some significant struggles to take on in the field. The most obvious of these is coronavirus, which has thrown a massive monkey wrench in the attempted outward expansion of Tesla's operations in Asia, especially in China. The recently-built gigafactory in China is quiet for now—though for how much longer is anyone's guess as the Chinese economy chokes on the lack of workers—and that's doing double-edged damage on both supply and demand.
Tesla's efforts to expand in Europe have met with some troubles as well. Tesla finally managed to overcome problems in Germany that kept the company from building, including everything from court orders to the unexpected discovery of unexploded World War II munitions on the property. Now it has the unexpected problem of having to clear a chunk of forest ground before it can start building, which in and of itself is a serious problem in optics. Tesla cars are supposed to be the environment's new best friend, but in order to start building them, Tesla is going to have to cut down a pine forest said to be the size of 100 soccer fields. Notably, Tesla promised to plant three trees for every one cut down, but that means sourcing enough seedlings to cover 300 soccer fields' worth of forest. That's on top of various other issues, including finding a way to humanely evict any wolves that might be living in the vicinity.
In perhaps the biggest pothole on Tesla's road to profitability, that “battery day” that's coming up will be coming up amid a strange new development. New word emerged that put Tesla and Panasonic's (OTCMKTS: PCRFY) joint venture to produce solar cells at Tesla's Gigafactory 2 location in Buffalo, New York on ice. The deal had been in place since 2017, and called for Panasonic to make solar cells therein for Tesla to offer up, especially as part of its Solar Roof system. Currently, though, Tesla is using solar cells made in China, a move that might well have bought it advantage back before the coronavirus, but now, maybe not so much.
Battery Day will likely prove the catalyst for Tesla's ongoing rise or catastrophic failure, as we get a better look at just what's going on under the Tesla organization's hood. There's certainly a lot to like here, but plenty of pitfalls potentially on hand as well.


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Showing the Latest Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) Results
It is clear: consumer protections from the payday loan industry are needed now more than ever before.
‘Consumers First Act’ Markup Comes After Two Years of Unchecked Erosion of Consumer Protections Under Trump Administration
A new day of congressional accountability has come.
All ‘Better’ Now?: Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan Feeds Congress a Line of Carriage-Horse Manure About Bank’s ‘Improving’ Culture
ICYMI: Allied Progress’ full-page ad and WellsFargoFacts.com detailing how CEO Tim Sloan’s ever-rising salary has only incentivized customer abuse.
As CEO of Scandal-Plagued Wells Fargo Faces Congressional Hot Seat, Allied Progress Ad Urges Congress to Rein In Bad Banking Behavior
Our ad, “The Unwelcome Wagon,” debuts WellsFargoFacts.com detailing how Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan’s ever-rising salary has only incentivized more consumer abuse.
There will be hell to pay for any Democrats helping Wall Street to “reclaim its time.”


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Redevco has attracted Decathlon City and Team Break to complete the leasing of Le 31 in Lille. This innovative mixed-used project in the heart of the city, is now fully let and will open in Spring 2021.
LabTech, owner of Camden Market, has announced its latest signing for Camden’s high street, Café De Nata, the Portuguese tart specialists.
ECE is continuing to push the expansion of its shopping centers into omnichannel platforms and is underpinning these efforts with a new strategic partnership with Google.
Leading specialist UK leisure property agency, Shelley Sandzer, acting on behalf of a private landlord, has leased the 4,300 sq ft restaurant at 38 Victoria Road in Surbiton to Megan’s, the independent all-day eatery.
The Mercers’ Company has announced that independent jewellers, e&e Jewellery, has signed for a new boutique on Neal Street, set to launch late November.
The share of Internet sales has returned to near pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, Polish customers are more willing than before to turn to convenience shopping in smaller retail formats.


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URBANA -- Three-and-a-half years after it was first established on campus, the University of Illinois Sustainable Student Farm is having its best year ever.
Despite the drought.
Workers and volunteers have harvested salad greens, heirloom tomatoes, peppers and plenty of that ubiquitous summer vegetable, the zucchini.
The produce is packed and transported to the Quad in a "folding farm," a contraption designed by UI architecture students that is hooked to a bicycle and doubles as a table for selling the produce.
Because vegetable varieties are chosen for taste, not their capacity for being stored and shipped over long distances, the locally grown veggies are "packed with flavor," said Bruce Branham, professor in the Department of Crop Sciences who helped kick-start the project.
"We choose varieties that are high in eating quality," said Zack Grant, who graduated with a master's degree in horticulture from the UI and serves as the farm's manager. He also has the privilege of biking the folding farm to campus on Thursdays for the farm stand.
Since its beginning, the farm has grown thanks to several partnerships with departments in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, and other units on campus, including architecture, dining services, not to mention some community groups such as the Master Gardeners.
Students have helped keep it running by providing some funding raised through the student sustainability fee and by helping plant, pull weeds and harvest for a total of about 1,000 volunteer hours annually.
"This year has probably been our best year because we've expanded into more areas, and we also have a really versatile irrigation system," Grant said.
When the farm was initially established, organizers had land, and that was pretty much it: about 2 acres of ground.
Since then, they've installed an irrigation system, added storage and office space, and high tunnels or hoop houses, which are like greenhouses that help extend the growing season. The farm is now up to about 6 acres. Although for the most part they grow and sell vegetables like radishes, beets and squash, they're also looking into some small berry production.
Branham said much of the first three years have been focused on building the farm's infrastructure and getting the production system down.
The student farm is not some "flash-in-the-pan" project, Branham said.
"We've had some hardships and limited resources," Grant said.
But they have not experienced any major crop failures.
Unlike a large vegetable farm in California or Florida where producers grow one or two vegetables, "we mix things up. We're constantly move things around and growing a large diversity of things," Grant said.
"The type of farm we're modeling here is a highly diversified small to medium farm," Grant said.
Typically, diverse vegetable farms start out selling directly to consumers at farmers' markets or through a community-supported agriculture program, then they build markets and production from there. This farm started with a partnership with UI dining services to supply campus dining halls with tomatoes, peppers and salad greens as a way to boost the amount of locally grown food being served there. One day, organizers may form a community-supported agriculture group, Grant said.
"The goal, and this has taken longer than we thought, is to make the farm produce enough that the farm pays for itself, and hopefully generate a profit," Branham said.
They've welcomed tours and held outreach events at the farm, but Branham said he envisions the farm becoming more involved with the university's academic mission. That means adding teaching and research activities at the farm.
"As it matures, we want to ... offer a class next summer in hands-on vegetable production, conduct some research trials (in vegetable production) and work more with faculty," Bran-ham said.
For now, you can sample the fruits of the farm by stopping by the farm stand on the Quad where they sell bok choy, herbs, cauliflower and more. It's located just south of the Illini Union on Thursdays through November from around 11 a.m. until the produce is sold out or until about 5 p.m.


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The development status of China's semiconductor industry
As the world's largest semiconductor consumer market, China's semiconductor industry emerged in recent years, as the big data, artificial intelligence, automotive electronics, virtual reality, Internet of things, the rise of emerging industries such as 5 g commercial semiconductor application scenario for the expanding and growing market demand, semiconductors have become a high value-added, high-tech industries in the 21st century.
China's semiconductor equipment industry market size
According to SEMI data analysis report, global semiconductor equipment sales increased from us $31.8 billion in 2013 to US $64.5 billion in 2018, with a cAGR of about 15.2%. In the first quarter of 2019 and 2020, the growth rate was reduced due to the global epidemic. It is expected that the growth will resume after the epidemic. Among them, the global sales volume in 2019 was us $52.12 billion, and the sales volume in China reached US $8.69 billion, making it the only semiconductor material country in the world showing a market growth trend in 2019. The sales volume ranks the third in the world, and is expected to recover to US $10 billion in 2021 and 2022.
Due to technical threshold is high, in the past, the global semiconductor market mainly concentrated in America, Japan, China's semiconductor industry rate is low, in recent years in domestic 5 g, emerging industries such as artificial intelligence and global trade friction under the background of science and technology, the domestic semiconductor industry demand rising, China's semiconductor industry develops, the semiconductor industry localization rate will become the inevitable trend in the future. Under the strong support of independent and controllable development strategy and national policies, the size of China's semiconductor equipment market in 2019 is about 92.351 billion yuan, of which the size of semiconductor testing equipment market is about 6.743 billion yuan, and it is expected that the size of testing equipment in 2022 will reach 10.322 billion yuan.
Independent science and technology, leading China
Based on the above data analysis, the trend of large-scale development of China's semiconductor industry in the future is unstoppable. At the same time, the rise of domestic manufacture technology has become a inevitable, as China's semiconductor testing equipment industry in the emerging market, society, science and technology co., LTD. Shenzhen sen's overall performance is particularly impressive, review the past two years, SEMISHARE science and technology, with its innovative technology advantage and market share quickly stand out, as the industry a bright black horse, with enthusiasm! The company independent research and development production, laser wafer prober repair machine has gained many national patents, products with simple operation, stable operation and rapid detection, data accuracy, such as excellent product performance, has been applied to more than 1000 customers around the world, the service of the domestic semiconductor research and development in the top 100 institutions in more than 80% of customers to our cooperation.
Future-oriented, SEMISHARE comprehensive power, China's semiconductor test equipment introduced in Japan and South Korea and Italy, the industry's top technical experts around the world, formed a doctor, master, senior engineer and so on more than 70 people in the high-end professional r&d team, set up thousand level research and test center, continue to accelerate innovation, to attack difficult technical barriers. At the same time, the company has established a nationwide marketing service system, set up branches in Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Xi 'an and Hong Kong, and established long-term and stable cooperation with many famous scientific research institutions around the world, making full efforts to build a benchmark model in the field of semiconductor testing equipment in China. Accelerate innovation, focus on research, continue the industry, lead the rapid development of China's semiconductor testing equipment industry, to provide better product solutions and technical services for global customers, SEMISHARE technology to create extraordinary technology!


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Google s CEO Sundar Pichai is visiting India to address media, developers and startups in the country. Pichai is also scheduled to meet key ministers in the government. Also Read - Now you will have to pay a processing fee for mobile recharges on PhonePeAlso Read - Google cuts Play Store fee to 15 percent for all subscription apps from 2022
Interestingly, Sundar Pichai s visit to India has triggered speculations that Google may revive Android One program in India with new ultra-low-cost smartphones. While the agenda of Pichai s meet hasn t been revealed as yet, but Google may be looking to achieve a lot of things other than rumored Android One through the visit. Also Read - Facebook’s new name could be Meta or Horizon, or will it be called FB?
One of the main agendas could be becoming a greater stakeholder in the Digital India campaign. Digital India is Narendra Modi s ambitious project, and he has made plenty of efforts to realize this through visits to Silicon Valley and meeting key tech executives around the world. Modi had also met Pichai during his recent visit to the US. Following the meeting, Google had announced greater participation in the Digital India campaign by providing Wi-Fi service at about 500 stations by next year. Pichai s visit may see a formalization of this announcement, and more details about this initiative.
Another key element of the Digital India is the connecting the remote areas of the country through the Internet. While the NOFN is already in place for this purpose, Google may also want to launch its Google Fibre services in the country that is in line with the Digital India efforts. The purpose of the network, we believe, will be providing affordable and faster connectivity across India.
Google and the Indian government have long discussed the prospects of the Project Loon in the country. It may be recalled that the Project Loon had hit one of its first hurdles in the country after the government expressed concerns that the Internet-beaming balloons may interfere with the existing networks and spectrums. Pichai and his key executives will want to sort these issues out during this visit.
One of the key announcements could be around Indic language support for smartphones as well as apps. Google could announce partnerships with some smartphone vendors as well as some app developers.
Pichai is also expected to announce a fund to support Indian startups.


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Metso Outotec has added two new products to its Nordtrack mobile crushing and screening range – a mobile screen and a mobile impact crusher.
Nordtrack S2.5 is a small-size, versatile mobile scalping screen designed for small job sites and a variety of applications. With a compact and lightweight structure, a highly efficient two-deck screen, and a wide selection of different screening media, it is the perfect solution for construction contractors with frequent changes in site locations or simply as a rental unit, says Vesa Tuloisela, who heads the Nordtrack product offering at Metso Outotec.
The second new addition to the range is the Nordtrack I908 mobile impact crusher. Its design is optimised for the smaller-sized material reduction job sites, and it accepts different kinds of feed material – from asphalt recycling to concrete crushing, as well as traditional rock crushing.
The same base model with an integrated screen on the chassis, the Nordtrack I908S, was introduced earlier, and it has been one of the best-selling Nordtrack units especially in Europe, he says.
“The Nordtrack range has been extremely well received by our customers,” says Tuloisela. “It has proven to be a flexible solution meeting different requirements. Nordtrack sales have been developing very well despite the pandemic; in fact, we have exceeded sales targets in some areas. However, we are always listening carefully to customer feedback. These two new products represent a concrete outcome of those discussions.”
Vesa adds that Metso Outotec aims to grow its recycling customer base and offer attractive solutions for the rental business and for construction contractors globally.
The products were launched on March 17 in the Nordtrack Liveroom, which is Metso Outotec’s new 360-degree digital event experience platform. Liveroom features 3D demonstrations of the Nordtrack range as well as a wealth of information on the aftermarket offering. Both new products are already available globally through Metso Outotec and distributors.
Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Metso Outotec is a frontrunner in sustainable technologies, end-to-end solutions and services for the aggregates, minerals processing and metals refining industries globally. Its sales for 2020 were about €3.9 billion ($4.75 billion).


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Can Biodegradable Silk Replace Industrial Microplastics?
MIT scientists invent biodegradable silk as an alternative to microplastics being used in the production of cosmetics, agricultural chemicals, paints, etc.
With increasing environmental pollution and drastic climatic changes, microplastics have been under constant scrutiny. These tiny plastic particles are found everywhere – in the air, soil, and water – even, in human blood. Amid the rising environmental and health concerns, an MIT research team has found a way to combat microplastics with the help of biodegradable silk.
The MIT team has curated a silk-based system to form an inexpensive alternative to microplastics. This new study is published in the journal Small and was authored by Benedetto Marelli (MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering), Muchun Liu (MIT postdoc), and BASF company’s team based at American and German facilities.
Typically, microplastics are intentionally added to various products, like paints, personal care products, agricultural chemicals, cleaning products, and detergents. It is estimated that European Union alone produces around 50,000 tons of microplastics every year. Therefore, the EU states have recently declared to find suitable replacements to reduce the use of non-biodegradable microplastics, most probably by 2025.
Therefore, the new eco-friendly biodegradable silk is being considered an effective solution to substitute the use of microplastics in various industries. However, it will be a solution to create new materials that would make up only 10 to 15 percent of environmental microplastics, which means it won’t be effective on a massive scale.
Nonetheless, using silk as a sustainable, biodegradable material offers many benefits. For instance, it is safe to make medical and food products, as this non-toxic material easily breaks down in the human body. Silk is an affordable material as it makes use of the parts of the silkworm cocoon. Hence, it does not need expensive techniques to produce.
Thanks to traditional spray-based equipment for manufacturing, the researchers have effectively produced water-soluble microencapsulated herbicide products using the custom silk-based coating material. The processing is very simple and easy to modify, depending on the application and intent of use.
When tested on greenhouse-grown crops, it provided better results and caused less damage to the plants than other commercially available products. Thanks to the material’s tunability, it is very effective yet unique. Since it is easier to adjust silk’s polymer chain arrangements, it becomes convenient to refine its coating properties once it hardens and dries up.
This innovative silk system appears to be a suitable replacement for microplastics. It could also help us to fight the challenges that we face every day to reduce plastic-related issues. With the help of these exquisite materials, the EU and other nations are most likely to attain their sustainable environmental goals soon.


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Editor’s Note: Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI)
Google Study Gets Employees to Stop Eating So Many M&Ms (Time News Feed)
There’s a reason Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) continues to rank high among the best companies to work for, and a keen awareness of its employees’ office habits may have helped it earn that reputation. As the Washington Post reports, recent findings from an in-house study nicknamed “Project M&M” analyzed how employee consumption of the company’s favorite confectionary might impact productivity and happiness. Under the direction of Google’s human resources team, People Operations, the study used experiments on placement and proximity of M&Ms and consulted research on food psychology to reduce the amount of candy its employees were eating.
Google-Motorola Deal Foreshadows Challenge Awaiting Microsoft (Bloomberg)
If Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) deal is anything to go by, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) investors will need to brace for diminished profitability now that it has agreed to purchase Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)’s handset business. The profit margin at Google has shrunk by more than 7 percentage points since the search provider purchased the struggling hardware unit in May of 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Motorola business posted an operating loss equal to 34 percent of sales in the most recent quarter.
Internet giant Google celebrates 15th birthday (The Independent)
Internet giant Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is celebrating its 15th birthday today. The firm has come a long way since September 4 1998, when it was incorporated by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who had met at university three years previously. It was originally called BackRub, but they eventually settled on the name for the website that has become synonymous with internet searching today – so much so that it is used as a verb in its own right.
Google pulls Authenticator app for logins after it wipes account details (The Guardian)
Google has withdrawn the newest iPhone version of its Authenticator app, used with two-step account authentication, after users discovered that it wiped settings and prevented login. The update appeared in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)‘s App Store on Tuesday evening but users quickly discovered that once opened, it lost all the settings they had previously saved for accounts.
Google Glass App Store Coming Next Year (Mashable)
Get ready, Glassholes: Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Glass will get its very own app store next year. The long-awaited news was first revealed rather off-handedly in a long New York Times Magazine piece this weekend, and Google has since confirmed it to the blog Marketing Land. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night.


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A new month is upon us and it’s possibly one of the most exciting, in which we’ll be making an appearance at three separate events!
We’re first hitting up Mobile Growth Summit in San Francisco from the 1st–2nd of February. MGS is North America’s biggest mobile-only conference and gives attendees the opportunity to interact with and learn from the top mobile industry professionals. Enric Pedró, our US&CA Director, will be representing mobusi at the event.
Next up, at the end of the month, we’ll be at Mobile World Congress run by the GSMA from the 27th February – 2nd March in Barcelona, the Mobile World Capital. It is the world’s largest mobile gathering and it’s a chance for everyone who’s anyone in the mobile phone industry to meet, greet and share ideas. This 5-day summit will see more than 100,000 people and 2,200 organisations come together to share ideas and exhibit their brand. It is THE place to meet the entire global community of mobile leaders and innovators. It is one of the biggest events on the calendar and one not to be missed. It will be our fourth consecutive appearance at the show and we’re sending out a huge team from our office, so there will be plenty chance to meet up.
Then, at the same time, our team will be hitting up the Game Developers’ Conference (GDC) in San Francisco from the 27th February – 3rd March. Representing the mobusi team will be Macarena Cenalmor, VP Client Services and Enric Pedró, US&CA Director. The GDC is the world’s largest professional games industry event and sees 27,000 attendees from the games world unite to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry.
Interested in meting us at one of these top events? Get in contact with our team now!


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Cars Of The Future—CTO Of KPIT Technologies Explains
Around 100 years ago, automobiles were largely about mechanical components, thermodynamics and combustion technology. Somewhere in the 1990s, software-driven electronics started improving quality of engines and brakes. Now, the software and computing power has taken over.
Instead of supporting the car, software now defines the car, according to Anup Sable, chief technology officer at KPIT Technologies Ltd., a software provider to the automotive sector. In the future, he said, mobility will be a function of software and computers in a car.
According to Sable, three key changes currently are under way in the auto sector:
Increase in electrification of vehicle.
Change in connectivity.
Self-handling of several aspects like in autonomous cars.
A Brand New Car Every Year
Cars today have, in a way, become similar to consumer devices as the differentiating aspect is the features offered, Sable said. As the car gets increasingly connected and primarily software-driven, the consumer will have access to additional features even after the purchase, he said.
“You can upgrade the car every year by purchasing new software features that will enhance your car,” he said. The consumer, according to him, will have a new car every year without having to actually replace it.
ICE Vs EVs
Internal combustion or fossil-fuel driven vehicles will continue to compete with electric vehicles for the time being. But once solid-state batteries—requiring a fifth of the current time to charge—become mainstream and the charging infrastructure is in place, it will become very difficult for ICE vehicles to keep up the fight, Sable said.
EV is a technological disruption and so will be autonomous vehicles, according to Sable. New competitors will definitely come in, at times replacing incumbents, he said.
Screens, Screens And More Screens
According to Sable, future cars will have a lot of screens. There’s a possibility that every single device in the car will be replaced by a screen, maybe a folding one. The dashboard, the entire front panel and even mirrors could just be screens, he said.
Beyond that, quantum computing will be the next disruption and potentially become mainstream in 5-10 years by becoming part of software. Drivers could be monitored for their health, cars could change colors depending on the driver’s mood (thanks to nanotechnology), he sad.
And, Sable said, the world can expect flying cars to become common in the next 20-30 years.
Watch: Talking Point with KPIT's Anup Sable:


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The Force, from a galaxy far, far away, rose from its slumber this weekend to assist Disney’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at the box office. Grossing an estimated $238 million in the U.S. and Canada, the seventh installment of the George Lucas-created franchise now holds the record for the largest opening weekend of a film ever.
The box office has not seen a performance like this since Universal’s “Jurassic World” opened in June ($208.8 million) and, prior to that, 2012’s premiere of “Marvel’s The Avengers” from Disney ($207.4 million).
Ahead of the weekend, those familiar with audience tracking surveys predicted an opening weekend of $180 million to $220 million. But by Friday afternoon, those projections began to look increasingly conservative.
Playing in over 4,000 theaters domestically, “Star Wars” began its massive run with a record-breaking $57 million in ticket sales for early Thursday night showings. That far exceeded the previous benchmark of $43.5 million set by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” in July 2011. When Friday numbers were tallied, the official first-day total was an estimated $120.5 million. This gave the J.J. Abrams-directed picture the highest single-day profits on record and it became first film to break the $100-million mark in a single day.
The numbers for “The Force Awakens” are also unprecedented for a film premiering in December. The record holder for the biggest opening during the month was “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which took in $85 million in domestic receipts in 2012.
Audiences gave the new release an A grade, and an A-plus among women and younger audiences, according to polling firm CinemaScore. It also earned a 95% positive rating from critic site Rotten Tomatoes.
Such a showing is on par with the palpable anticipation demonstrated by fans and the movie theater industry ahead of the release. Audiences set a number of records for advance ticket sales on sites like Fandango. The movie racked up more than $100 million in pre-sales by its Thursday night opening. Additionally, when Disney debuted the final theatrical trailer during a “Monday Night Football” game on ESPN that coincided with the tickets going on sale online, the trailer was viewed 128 million times in 24 hours.
The interest of fans led to expectations across the industry that “Star Wars” would drive up ticket sales as October and November box office numbers, compared with last year, are lower. Theater owners set aside huge portions of their auditoriums for the film, with some showings as early as 2 a.m.
Other wide releases also premiering this week included Fox’s “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip” and Universal’s “Sisters.” Neither, however, could come close to the film starring Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Daisy Ridley among others.
The “Star Wars” box office takeover was also supported by some unusual promotions for ticket buyers. AMC Theatres offered new movie posters to people who bought Imax 3D tickets for Sunday showings. High-end chain Cinépolis brought in members of the 501st Legion — a group of enthusiasts dressed in Stormtrooper garb — to take pictures with moviegoers in the lobby.
Disney’s sustained marketing campaign tapped into the nostalgia for the original trilogy and got people talking about the movie via social media. On Twitter, the movie was mentioned roughly 2 million times on Thursday alone, making it the most tweeted-about movie ever, according to social media analytics firm Union Metrics.
Much is at stake for the Walt Disney Co., which, in 2012 paid $4.1 billion for production company Lucasfilm, largely for the “Star Wars” franchise. The big numbers for “The Force Awakens” bode well for the future of the franchise, and not just at the box office. Burbank-based Disney also stands to generate sizable returns across other business segments, including video games, merchandise and theme parks.
It remains to be seen whether “Star Wars” will have a halo effect on the industry and get theater goers to also see other movies. Next week, films including Sony’s “Concussion,” Paramount’s “Daddy’s Home,” Fox’s “Joy” and Warner Bros.’ “Point Break” will hit theaters. Some analysts worry such films could get lost in the shadow of “Star Wars,” though some suggest otherwise as “Star Wars” brought out consumers who haven’t been to a theater in a long time – welcome news to theater owners who have seen their attendance stagnate in recent years.
“You’ve got people coming out who aren’t frequent moviegoers,” said Will Palmer, chief executive of the film marketing analytics firm Movio. “This is reigniting a whole raft of customers who don’t usually go to the movies and have disengaged with the cinema.”
The industry also awaits to see if “Star Wars’” force can help push U.S.-Canada ticket sales to a record $11 billion. The year 2013 was best for the box office at $10.9 billion.
From the Los Angeles Times


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Sixthman has launched the new Kid Rock "Chillin' The Most" Cruise website at KidRockCruise.com.
Get ready for another 4-day fun fest with Sixthman and your host Kid Rock from April 7-11, 2011, leaving New Orleans on Carnival Triumph and sailing to Cozumel. The boat will be bigger, the party will be harder and fans on board will be yelling louder "I'm On A Boat MFers!"
Like this year's cruise, Sixthman and Kid Rock will have a mind blowin, hard rockin lineup of special guests and on board activities!
Booking for Kid Rock's 2nd inaugural "Chillin' The Most" Cruise is now available to the public and starts at $899 with very few cabins remaining! Book now before it's sold out, HERE.
Below is a recap from the cruise on April 29-May 3, 2010 from Tampa, FL to the Bahamas.


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Scotchy, scotch, scotch: How Macallan uses Instagram to court millennial drinkers
Scotch is all about its taste, its age, its smoothness and its scent.
And none of that translates very well in a photograph. But for Macallan, the premium Scotch whisky brand that has made digital a core tenet of its marketing strategy, Instagram is its most important channel.
When it launched Edition No. 1, a new collectible scotch priced at $99 last month (collectibles can run into the thousands) and targeted at the millennial market, it did it through Instagram. The brand created eight different Instagram accounts, one for each of the wood casks in which its scotch was distilled, in an effort to break down stuffy information about why this whiskey is so good.
A photo of a bottle on the brand’s main account was tagged with the eight different cask accounts. Users could click through to learn about that particular cask. Sam Leotta, digital marketing head for the brand, said it was a deliberate attempt to recruit a “brand-new generation of drinkers.”
In the last quarter, Macallan has grown its Instagram follower count 350 percent to 28,000. (It has only 11,000, in comparison, on Twitter.) A lot of that is because of lifestyle content. “We have found that there is a big demand for whisky knowledge among millennials, but they don’t want to consume it in a traditional way,” said Leotta. “So we have to do it succinctly.”
The brand runs a “Did you know?” series that shares facts about the drink and Scotland — average engagement is 30 percent higher than other posts, said Leotta. “We see that they are trying to connect with us to learn real substantive facts.”
Other content includes advice on pairing scotch at dinner parties, how to serve it and how to talk about it. In part, this is a result of the brand shifting to focus more on female scotch drinkers: 50 percent of people who attend guided tasting sessions hosted by the brand all over the country are female. “It’s become a social currency to know about whisky,” said Leotta.
The brand ranks in the “gifted” category in L2’s annual digital IQ index for spirits — making it one of the best digital marketers in the space, with a digital IQ of 130. (Jameson and Laphroaig, in comparison, have 113; Glenmorangie comes in at 102.)
The brand has noticed higher engagement when it features photos of the bottle (Stoli vodka has the same finding), so it will pair those photos with actual content. One of its highest-performing series of posts on Instagram was a holiday gift guide that presented gift ideas over Christmas.
“Macallan gravitates toward Instagram because of its algorithm-less structure,” said Ben Lebowitz, director of digital strategy at M Booth. “We know people are following the brand, and most users go through the whole feed at one time. So they’re engaged.” The brand also said that it’s not worried about the growing number of ads — often of a lesser quality — on Instagram. “The high visual standard for our photos means our posts always stick out more.”
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The Waxhaw Entrepreneurs has changed its name to Waxhaw Entrepreneurs Business Incubator and Co-Worker (WE InC) and they are showing off their new look, new name and expanded focus in downtown Waxhaw.
WE InC is located at 216 West North Main St. in Waxhaw and is in the Niven-Price Building, which is owned by the Town of Waxhaw. The organization was originally called Waxhaw Entrepreneurs and was started in 2012 as a business incubator but over the past year a need was identified to move beyond just being a business incubator, although that is still a core component.
The expansion features co-working space, dedicated shared office space, a conference room, refreshment bar, secure and fast WiFi, business class printers and fax machine, a physical address for business mail and office landline among many amenities.
A business incubator helps entrepreneurs in a shared space with assistance from advisors offering pro-bono work to incubations, access to business canvas and other small start-up workshops and coaching, mentoring and support to keep incubations accountable and on track.
Numerous networking events such as Entrepreneurial Saturdays, pop-up markets and book discussions are also held monthly.
“It’s like a chicken in an incubator where they start out their life,” said Karen Johnson of We InC. “Every incubator is different because it fits the need of the town at the time. It has now evolved into adding co-working space as the needs of the community evolved.”
Waxhaw Downtown Development Manager Curt White said We InC will enhance an already thriving downtown business climate.
“What we have done here in partnership with originally the Waxhaw Entrepreneurs is to try and create something there is a big demand for,” White said. “It is unique in western Union County. It is a place people can come and network, and co-work and incubate their businesses in a cool environment right here in historic Waxhaw.
“This fills a need in the community for meeting space and co-working space. It’s a place where one can come and have a dedicated place to work. We are proud of it.”
People will have a work space with a coffee shop feel, that also comes with coffee, with really nice tables and chairs for work and there is also a conference room and photo/video studio. But working in a large open room is not the only option as business people can opt for a dedicated space that has the feel of a more traditional office.
“We get requests from people all the time in Waxhaw, ‘Where can I go work. Where can I hang out,'” White said. “This place fills what is really becoming a national trend. You can have the more coffee shop feel or have the more traditional office feel.”
We InC has not only received support from the Town of Waxhaw but many local businesses have become sponsors.
“They are usually bigger businesses in the area that say they want to support small businesses in the area,” Johnson said. “We are trying to build a strong small business community to bring people in their houses out to start co-working and brainstorming and build a small business community in Waxhaw.”


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Car-science, liang qi a professor of materials science and engineering at the university of michigan for example the structural glass in car windshields and in touch screens on smartphones and other screens. Dr jeff welser vice president of ibm research almaden pacific rim labs and global exploratory science tells tonya hall, average lifetime emissions from electric cars are up to 70 lower than gasoline cars in countries like sweden and france. The new formula e cars will be the first to use extremely fast charging stations that pack enough the wired conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our livesfrom, its five door hatchback body offers plenty of space for passengers and cargo meaning this third gen prius is a real car not.
On november 6 hundreds of students met hkust president wei shyy to discuss chow tsz lok a second year computer science, according to a study published on march 4 in science translational medicine a new car that incorporates chlorotoxin a small. As far as shows about three white guys and cars go proving grounds is damn decent what really like about it though, tuesday night found melinda snodgrass a new mexico science fiction writer in a flagstaff hotel room eating takeout food.
Aside from its whisper quiet electric powertrain the leaf also feels like any other car not a futuristic science project the infotainment system is a bit of a letdown but at least you get apple, the instrument panel is about to start jumping out of car dashboards tier one oem supplier continental has built a. Fears that electric cars could actually increase carbon emissions are a damaging myth new research shows media reports have questioned if electric cars are really "greener" once emissions


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NEW YORK CITY — March 30, 2017 — Lectra will build on its tradition of supporting education in the fashion industry through participation at the 6th Annual Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Education Summit. The invitation-only event will take place on Friday, March 31st, and Saturday, April 1, in New York. As one of the keynote speakers, Daniella Ambrogi, Lectra North America vice president of Marketing, will lead a discussion on “Four mega trends influencing the industry”.
Lectra’s commitment to supporting the next generation of fashion professionals is well established with education partnerships with more than 850 schools and universities from around the world. In fact, 11 of the 20 colleges and universities in attendance at the CFDA Fashion Education Summit are Lectra partners, including the Fashion Institute of Technology and The School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design.
“Through our educational partnerships, Lectra reinforces its support for tomorrow’s fashion professionals by helping them improve their business and technology knowledge, thereby providing them with the skills they need to succeed in the fashion world. And as the industry moves towards full digitalization, young talents need to be prepared to lead the way in this new scenario”, says Daniella Ambrogi.
“Lectra has consistently been at the forefront of innovation within digital manufacturing. In addition to establishing leading design-centered tools, they have supported education with a view to cultivating future talent. Lectra’s support also ignites exciting new thinking across intersections of sustainability and technology, prompting creative talent to experiment with new modes of design efficiency”, says Sara Kozlowski, CFDA Director of Education and Professional Development.
During Lectra’s presentation, Ms. Ambrogi will highlight the transformation underway in the industry, such as initiatives for the deployment of intelligent factories via “Industry 4.0”; Digitalization and its ecosystem of new technologies such as IoT, SaaS, cloud computing, mobile, and AI; How Millennials are massively influencing the consumer market; and China, a country accelerating its transition to a growth model based on domestic consumption and added value manufacturing.
The 2017 CFDA Fashion Education Summit highlights include a sustainability think tank session led by visiting guests from the London College of Fashion. Fjord Studio will lead a roundtable on design thinking, while six Urban Design students from Harvard Graduate School of Design will present their ideas on the future of fashion manufacturing. Participants include Nest founder Rebecca van Bergen, Maiyet’s Lauren Hurst, and designers Prabal Gurung, Maria Jahnkoy, Noa Raviv, and Lucy Jones.
Posted March 30, 2017


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One of the top DS development houses in the industry doesn't see the DSi as just a DS Lite plus gimmicks.
"It's not just a DS with cameras in it as some might think," video game producer David Nathanielsz told Kotaku in an interview earlier this week. "It's a more powerful platform."
Nathanielsz is the executive producer of the forthcoming Band Hero DS, which is in development at Activision's Vicarious Visions studio. (Check out Kotaku's Band Hero DS interview.) Vicarious Visions has distinguished itself in recent years at being one of the top houses for DS development, pushing the hardware more aggressively than most studios outside of Nintendo.
But Vicarious Visions has released just one download-only game for Nintendo's DSi, which has been on the market in the U.S. since April. The studio's next game, November's Band Hero DS, won't even play on the DSi. One reason for the studio's lack of DSi compatibility for its next project is obvious: the DSi lacks the Game Boy Advance slot that current models of the Vicarious Visions' DS music games — including Band Hero DS — require. It's where the games' guitar-grip peripheral plugs into.
Nathanielsz wouldn't say whether Vicarious Visions has found an alternate method for connecting guitar peripherals to the DSi for future releases, but he did say that not supporting the DSi with Band Hero DS was more than just a matter of the missing GBA slot.
"This is something we've really been thinking about and working on," he said. "What's interesting about the DSi is [that] it's a much more capable system than the DS and DSLite than some may think." He was suggesting that the machine has more horsepower, something I've heard from other DS developers as well but did not have a chance to follow-up on in this interview.
"We want to do it right," said Nathanielsz. "We want to get the best experience for what that platform can deliver."


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- 8 updates
TSB says it plans to grow its balance sheet by 40%-50% over the next five years.
The bank is aiming to become a larger player in the current account market, growing from 4.2% to 6% during that time.
Chief executive Paul Pester says it has already seen four to five as many people opening accounts every week since the TSB brand was re-launched last September than it had before.
Growth plans will also see TSB mortgages becoming available through brokers again from the start of next year.
TSB chief executive Paul Pester says there is "strong appetite" from investors for the flotation of TSB, with optimism in the UK and overseas over the strength of Britain's economic recovery.
Further tranches of TSB will be floated later, with Lloyds obliged to dispose of its remaining interest in the business by the end of 2015.
Details of the pricing of next month's offer have yet to be announced but reports put the book value of TSB at about £1.5 billion.
TSB is protected against compensation claims by its parent company, the bank's chief executive Paul Pester says.
Misconduct claims for the missale of payment protection insurance (PPI) have cost the industry billions of pounds, according to estimates from the Financial Conduct Authority.
Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osario says TSB has "a strong balance sheet" and is well protected from the issues that caused the banking crisis.
TSB will offer less than a quarter of its available shares to ordinary members of the public, its boss has said.
ITV News Business Editor Joel Hills reports:
Shares in TSB will be available to members of the public via intermediaries, as well as institutional investors.
Lloyds Banking Group said the retail offering will contain an incentive allowing each retail investor to receive one free share for every 20 shares acquired up to the value of £2,000 and kept for a year after the float.
A 25% stake in TSB is to be floated on the stock market next month, owner Lloyds Banking Group has announced.
Latest ITV News reports
Lloyds is being forced to sell TSB, its 631 branches and its 4.5 million customers, in return for the taxpayer support.


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Posted Sep 29, 2021, 7:45 pm
For Google, the future of online search comes down to two areas: image recognition and e-commerce. But the two of them don’t go without each other. On the contrary, the former can be used by others to facilitate shopping. At least that’s what Google intends to do with its latest innovations unveiled on Wednesday, during the traditional Search On event.
These new features are mainly related to Google Lens, its image recognition tool launched in 2017. Every month, 3 billion people, according to Google, use this app to identify plants or animals by photographing them, translating a train map written in Japanese, or even “flashing” chairs seen in the store and finding a similar model on e-commerce sites, such as Pinterest.
From now on, it will be possible to ask questions in writing … even in the context of visual searches. For example, someone might photograph a floral pattern on a duvet cover, but ask Google Lens to find them instead … socks with the same pattern, and then buy them with one click.
Almost every sixth purchase is made online
Certainly, this innovation – initially only available in English – could be reduced to additional convenience for Google users. But in reality, Mountain View has every interest in using its leadership in image recognition to accelerate e-commerce, while internet spending has exploded since the pandemic. In France, e-commerce grew by 30% in 2020, according to Fevad, a sectoral federation. Almost every sixth purchase is now made on the web …
Google has taken full advantage of the growing demand and e-commerce boom, which brings in juicy advertising revenue. The group is an intermediary that connects buyers and sellers, especially through Google Shopping, its price comparator. But now the challenge – as with Facebook and Instagram – is to be able to shop directly in the Google universe, for example on YouTube. “We have a real-time database that includes 24 billion products,” said Matt Madrigal of Google Merchants.
Google Lens can be a powerful tool in this strategy. But today, the dedicated Lens app is only available on smartphones running Android, the operating system … from Google. IPhone users, on the other hand, should download the generic Google app and click on a small camera-shaped emoticon.
Without changing this rule, however, Google is enriching the experience for iPhone users, first in the United States. All images on the website will now be able to be “scanned” by Google Lens. By surfing, for example, a blog about decoration, the user will be able to zoom in on this and that product and find similar references on e-commerce sites.
In stock function.
In addition to Lance, Google also customizes its search engine. In the United States, clothing inquiries will be displayed in a much more visual way to better highlight different colors, styles, and so on. Finally, the new “in stock” filter will let you know if the product is available at the nearest stores without having to go anywhere. Unlike the others, this function arrives in France on September 29.


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One of the most well-known publishers of “adult” games claims that Nintendo’s bosses have rejected its upcoming titles.
Gamuzumi, the publisher of “amazing mature (LEWD) titles”, has released several adult-themed Nintendo Switch games in recent years, including Elves Fantasy Hentai Puzzle, Beauty Bounce and Inside Her (Bedroom).
However, the company says its next hentai-themed game, Hot Tentacles Shoot, has been rejected by Nintendo because it has reportedly updated its eShop’s stance on adult content.
“We received an answer from Nintendo and now we have a confirmation that they do not allow uncensored boobs on their consoles now,” the company said.
“Basically, obscene content could damage the brand and infringe its policies. This means that now all games with boobs nudity should be censored and that’s why our game (Hot Tentacles Shoot) was rejected in the first place.”
He added: “Also, our recently announced game, Elves Christmas Hentai Puzzle, was also rejected due to having nudity. That’s all the info we have so far, we’ll try to send the games without nudity for approval again and see what they say and update the thread if necessary.”
If true, the new guidelines could mean that other publishers releasing adult content on Switch could soon be censoring their games.
Given that Nintendo has historically been strict about ensuring that its console libraries do not contain adult content, it may come as a surprise that these types of games have been allowed to be released on Switch at all.
A brief search of the Nintendo Switch eShop reveals that games such as Fantasy Tavern Sextet, Panty Party and DokiDoki Pants have been approved for release in the past. Last year, two puzzle games were also released on the Switch eShop, openly advertised as “playable with one hand”.
According to a Wall Street Journal report around the Switch’s launch, several Japanese developers claimed that Nintendo had expressed a willingness to release riskier or more violent titles that some would have expected to be blocked in the past.
In comparison, Sony has recently cracked down on sexually explicit games.
The most notable recent example of this was the censorship of some controversial scenes in Martha is Dead.
Ironically, given the historical reputations of the two companies, there have now been several examples of games with sexualised content censored on PlayStation consoles but released untouched on Switch.


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Uber has taken plenty of heat for its surge-price policy during busy hours, but the e-hailing startup tried to assuage this backlash Monday by announcing a feature that will let customers know when surge pricing has ended.
Riders dissuaded by surge pricing during periods of high demand will be able to set a push notification that will tell them when prices have returned to normal. “Maybe you don’t need to have a ride right now and can wait 20 minutes or so for when surge pricing ends,” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said at the Launch Festival in San Francisco. “You’re constantly creating a system where supply and demand clear.”
Kalanick said Uber drivers “love surge pricing” and the highest fare paid was 9.25x the normal price on New Year’s Eve. “Our goal is to get the cheapest ride possible, because we’re trying to become a mainstay in the transportation space,” he said. “We need to provide a reliable ride when you can’t get one. But at the end of the day there are thousands of people or tens of thousands of people who got a ride when they wouldn’t have already had one.”
Though Kalanick has been a strong defender of surge pricing as a way to increase the service’s reliability, the company recently announced a number of initiatives to make the service more accessible, including the lowering of UberX fares in 16 cities. Uber also launched a ride-sharing service in Paris earlier this month.


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DETROIT -- Dodge will open dealer ordering for its new 707-hp 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat today, but the brand is changing its normal allocation methods to make sure the high-powered coupe gets into the hands of waiting enthusiasts.
Dodge will base Hellcat dealer allocation on the total number of Dodge vehicles a dealer has sold within the last 180 days, including everything from Dart to Durango to Viper, brand head Tim Kuniskis said.
In December, a second allocation calculation will be made based on the previous 90-days’ sales performance, as well as a traditional 30-day inventory turn.
The dealer allocation for the Challenger Hellcat rewards the dealers “that are selling the Dodge brand,” Kuniskis said. “You sell a lot of Darts for me, Journeys for me, Durangos for me, I’m going to give you the rights to this one, too, because this is a halo of the brand.”
After the initial allocation, Dodge will also begin to measure the Hellcat’s days-on-lot and use it as a factor to determine the number of Challenger SRT Hellcats a dealer will get, Kuniskis said.
The longer a Hellcat sits without being sold -- as it might if it were to have a $10,000 or $20,000 market adjustment on it -- relative to those on other dealer lots, the fewer future Hellcat vehicles a dealer will receive, the Dodge brand boss explained.
“It’s going to be a nightmare, but I think it’s the right thing to do,” Kuniskis said, adding that he has no issue with market pricing, and said dealers have a right to do so.
The 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat is due in Chrysler dealerships in the third quarter. The supercharged V-8 is the most powerful production car ever built by Chrysler, and has 7 more horsepower than the $400,000 Lamborghini Aventador.
“If you want to market-adjust the car, that’s your right. But if your days-on-lot goes above what the other guys that are selling them at MSRP is, they will end up earning the allocation because their days-on-lot will be lower. They’re turning the inventory,” Kuniskis said. “Some dealers are going to have heartburn with that.”
But, he said, “I want this car out in the marketplace so that somebody is sharing it with 50 of their friends and elevating the brand. That’s what I want; not sitting in your showroom with a rope around it. I want people driving these cars, talking about them, revving the engine and having everybody go ‘I want one of those.’ That’s why you build a halo car.”
Kuniskis said Dodge “worked hard” to price the Challenger SRT Hellcat at what he called an attainable $60,990, including shipping, “but that all goes out the window if this car ends up with $20,000 market adjustments on it.”


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In the ever-competitive world of trading cards, companies are constantly striving to secure exclusive contracts with athletes, both professional and up-and-coming. The race for exclusivity often brings to mind the historic rivalry between Bowman and Topps in the baseball card industry. Now, Panini America has entered the fray, announcing an exclusive trading card and autograph deal with Julian Sayin, a highly talented quarterback prospect who recently made his transfer to Ohio State.
This significant partnership represents Sayin’s first foray into the world of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals. The agreement covers autographed trading cards and marketing initiatives, demonstrating Panini America’s commitment to investing in future sports stars. Sayin, who is set to make his freshman debut at Ohio State next season, expressed his enthusiasm for seeing his dream of having his own trading card come to fruition through this exclusive arrangement with Panini.
Jason Howarth, the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Athlete Relations at Panini, expressed the company’s excitement at partnering with such a promising talent. He believes that Sayin has a bright future both on and off the field. Sayin’s impressive high school career at Carlsbad High School in California, where he led his team to a remarkable 30-4 record as a starter and accumulated nearly 8,000 passing yards, showcases his undeniable potential.
Panini’s strategy of securing deals with young, promising athletes like Sayin aligns with a broader trend in the trading card industry. Companies are eagerly exploring NIL partnerships with high school and college athletes, not only to tap into a new market of emerging talents but also to establish a connection with fans from the early stages of these athletes’ careers.
Recent signings by Panini, such as top high school quarterback prospect Dylan Raiola and highly ranked class of 2024 player Tre Johnson, demonstrate the growing importance of NIL deals in the sports memorabilia sector. Competitors like Leaf and Fanatics have also made similar moves, highlighting the industry-wide recognition that these partnerships are reshaping the trading card landscape and offering fans new ways to connect with the next generation of sports stars.
The rise of NIL deals in the trading card industry opens up exciting opportunities for both athletes and collectors. For athletes like Sayin, these partnerships provide a platform to build their personal brand and connect with fans on a more personal level. It also allows them to benefit financially from their likeness, an opportunity that was not available to them before the recent changes in NIL rules.
From a collector’s perspective, the exclusive nature of these trading cards adds to their desirability and value. Owning a card featuring a young athlete who has the potential to become a future superstar can be a thrilling prospect. It gives collectors a unique connection to the player’s early journey and offers the possibility of owning a valuable piece of sports memorabilia.
As the trading card industry continues to evolve and adapt to the changing landscape of athlete endorsements and partnerships, Panini America’s exclusive deal with Julian Sayin showcases the company’s commitment to nurturing young talent. By recognizing the potential in athletes like Sayin, Panini is securing a position at the forefront of the industry. The battle for exclusivity will surely intensify as other trading card companies strive to secure similar deals with the rising stars of various sports.
In conclusion, Panini America’s exclusive trading card and autograph deal with Julian Sayin signifies the growing importance of NIL partnerships in the trading card industry. This trend not only benefits the athletes by providing them with new opportunities for brand building but also adds value and excitement for collectors who can own exclusive cards featuring these promising young stars. The competition to secure exclusive contracts with young athletes is reshaping the industry and giving fans new ways to connect with the future faces of sports.


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Nextiva an industry-leading cloud-based communications provider, announced today that TMC (tmcnet.com), a global, integrated media company, has named NextOS as a recipient of a 2019 INTERNET TELEPHONY Product of the Year Award.
Empowering businesses with access to essential communication tools is at the forefront of Nextiva’s mission to democratize technology and give businesses a competitive advantage. Nextiva’s product portfolio includes a suite of comprehensive unified communications solutions for businesses of all sizes on the NextOS platform. In addition to feature-rich VoIP phone service, Nextiva offers business analytics, customer relationship management (CRM), surveys, and live chat.
“I am honored to recognize Nextiva with a 2019 Product of the Year Award for its commitment to excellence and innovation,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “In the opinion of our judges and editorial team, NextOS has proven to be among the best communications and technology solutions available on the market. I look forward to continued leadership from Nextiva.”
“It’s exciting to see Nextiva recognized with a ‘Product of the Year’ award for the 11th consecutive year,” said Charles Ingram, Nextiva chief product officer. “We are constantly executing product enhancements to provide businesses with the tools they need for seamless and effective communication.”
The winners of the 2019 INTERNET TELEPHONY Product of the Year will be featured in INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine online and on TMCnet. For more information about TMC, please visit tmcnet.com/.
About Nextiva, Inc.
Nextiva (nextiva.com) is an innovative tech company dedicated to simplifying business communications, team collaboration, and customer engagement. As the leading all-in-one communications platform, NextOS powers Nextiva's solutions, including business phone service, CRM, chat, surveys, and analytics. Nextiva creates outstanding customer experiences through its commitment to innovation and Amazing Service®, serving more than 150,000 businesses nationwide and employing over 1,000 team members.
About INTERNET TELEPHONY MAGAZINE
INTERNET TELEPHONY (itmag.com) has been the IP Communications Authority since 1998™. Beginning with the first issue, INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine has been providing unbiased views of the complicated converged communications space.


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Why supply chain risk management is a top priority
If you’re selling to the federal government, you need to take a closer look at your supply chain risk management process.
The software supply chain is, as most of us know by now, both a blessing and a curse. It’s an amazing, labyrinthine, complex (some would call it messy) network of components that, when it works as designed and intended, delivers the magical conveniences and advantages of modern life: Information and connections from around the world plus unlimited music, videos, and other entertainment, all in our pockets. Vehicles with lane assist and accident avoidance. Home security systems. Smart traffic systems. And on and on.
But when one or more of those components has defects that can be exploited by criminals, it can be risky and dangerous. It puts the entire chain in jeopardy. You know—the weakest link syndrome. Software vulnerabilities can be exploited to disrupt the distribution of fuel or food. It can be leveraged to steal identities, empty bank accounts, loot intellectual property, spy on a nation, and even attack a nation.
So the security of every link in the software supply chain is important—important enough to have made it into a portion of President Joe Biden’s May 12, 2021 executive order, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity” (also known as EO 14028).
It’s also important enough to have been one of the primary topics of discussion at the 2022 RSA Conference in San Francisco. Among dozens of presentations on the topic at the conference was “Software supply chain: The challenges, risks, and strategies for success” by Tim Mackey, principal security strategist within the Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center (CyRC).
Software supply chain challenges
The challenges and risks are abundant. For starters, too many organizations don’t always vet the software components they buy or pull from the internet. Mackey noted that while some companies do a thorough background check on vendors before they buy—covering everything from the executive team, financials, ethics, product quality, and other factors to generate a vendor risk-assessment score—that isn’t the norm.
“The rest of the world is coming through, effectively, an unmanaged procurement process,” he said. “In fact, developers love that they can just download anything from the internet and bring it into their code.”
While there may be some regulatory or compliance requirements on those developers, “they typically aren’t there from the security perspective,” Mackey said. “So once you’ve decided that, say, an Apache license is an appropriate thing to use within an organization, whether there are any unpatched CVEs [Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures] associated with anything with an Apache license, that’s somebody else’s problem. There’s a lot of things that fall into the category of somebody else’s problem.”
Then there’s the fact that the large majority of the software in use today—nearly 80%— is open source, as documented by the annual “Open Source Security and Risk Analysis” (OSSRA) report by the Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center.
Open source software is no more or less secure than commercial or proprietary software and is hugely popular for good reasons—it’s usually free and can be customized to do whatever a user wants, within certain licensing restrictions.
But, as Mackey noted, open source software is generally made by volunteer communities—sometimes very small communities—and those involved may eventually lose interest or be unable to maintain a project. That means if vulnerabilities get discovered, they won’t necessarily get fixed.
And even when patches are created to fix vulnerabilities, they don’t get “pushed” to users. Users must “pull” them from a repository. So if they don’t know they’re using a vulnerable component in their software supply chain, they won’t know they need to pull in a patch, leaving them exposed. The infamous Log4Shell group of vulnerabilities in the open source Apache logging library Log4j is one of the most recent examples of that.
Manage your supply chain risks
To manage that risk requires some serious effort. Simply keeping track of the components in a software product can get very complicated very quickly. Mackey told of a simple app he created that had eight declared “dependencies”—components necessary to make the app do what the developer wants it to do. But one of those eight had 15 dependencies of its own. And one of those 15 had another 30. By the time he got several levels deep, there were 133—for just one relatively simple app.
Also, within those 133 dependencies were “multiple instances of code that had explicit end-of-life statements associated with them,” he said. That means it was no longer going to be maintained or updated.
And simply keeping track of components is not enough. There are other questions organizations should be asking themselves, according to Mackey. They include, Do you
have secure development environments? Are you able to bring your supply chain back to integrity? Do you regularly test for vulnerabilities and remediate them?
“This is very detailed stuff,” he said, adding still more questions. Do you understand your code provenance and what the controls are? Are you providing a software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for every single product you’re creating? “I can all but guarantee that the majority of people on this [conference] show floor are not doing that today,” he said.
Security is a coordinated effort
But if organizations want to sell software products to the U.S. government, these are things they need to start doing. “The contract clauses for the U.S. government are in the process of being rewritten,” he said. “That means any of you who are producing software that is going to be consumed by the government need to pay attention to this. And it’s a moving target—you may not be able to sell to the U.S. government the way that you’re used to doing it.”
Even SBOMs, while useful and necessary—and a hot topic in software supply chain security—are not enough, Mackey said.
“Supply chain risk management (SCRM) is really about a set of coordinated efforts within an organization to identify, monitor, detect what’s going on. And it includes the software you create as well as acquire, because even though it might be free, it still needs to go through the same process,” he said.
Among those coordinated efforts is the need to deal with code components such as libraries, within the supply chain that are deprecated—no longer being maintained. Mackey said developers who aren’t aware of that will frequently send “pull requests” asking when the next update on a library is coming.
And if there is a reply at all, it’s that that the component is end-of-life been end-of-life and that the only thing to do is move to another library.”
“But what if everything depends on it?” he said. “This is a perfect example of the types of problems we’re going to run into as we start managing software supply chains.”
Another problem is that developers don’t even know about some dependencies they’re pulling into a software project, and whether those might have vulnerabilities.
NIST guidance on software supply chain security
There are multiple other necessary activities in SCRM that, collectively, are intended to make it much more likely that a software product can be trusted. Many of them are contained in the guidance on software supply chain security issued in early May by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in response to the Biden EO.
Mackey said this means that organizations will need their “procurement teams to be working with the government’s team to define what the security requirements are. Those requirements are then going to inform what the IT team is going to do—what a secure deployment means. So when somebody buys something you have that information going into procurement for validation.”
“A provider needs to be able to explain what their SBOM is and where they got their code because that’s where the patches need to come from,” he said.
Finally, Mackey said the biggest threat is the tendency to assume that if something is secure at one point in time, it will always be secure.
“We love to put check boxes beside things—move them to the done column and leave them there,” he said. “The biggest threat we have is that someone’s going to exploit the fact that we have a check mark on something that is in fact a dynamic something—not a static something that deserves a check mark. That’s the real world. It’s messy—really messy.”
Don’t wait; get started today
How prepared are software vendors to implement the security measures that will eventually be required of them? Mackey said he has seen reports showing that for some of those measures, the percentage is as high as 44%. “But around 18% is more typical,” he said. “People are getting a little bit of the message, but we’re not quite there yet.”
So for those who want to sell to the government, it’s time to get moving. “The clock is ticking,” Mackey said.
This post was originally published in https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/supply-chain-risk-management-federal-government/


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Last year, Sports Sponsorship Insider caught up with Marshall Osborne, Uber’s head of sports partnerships, for an informal video interview at the Sport Business Summit in London.
Listed in the top five of the top 20 sports innovators in 2016 by our sister publication SportBusiness International, Osborne has tailored Uber’s disruptive business model to help activate a series of innovative sports sponsorships.
The app-based taxi network is moving from single-season to multi-year sponsorship deals with major US sports franchises and plans to roll out new deals with European sports partners.
Osborne said that the brand is extending its sports partnerships longer term where pick-up experiences for travelling fans are poor. Uber can improve these experiences by creating dedicated parking zones or pick-up points around the stadium.
Listen to the full interview by clicking on the image below.


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The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has attributed the increased in the price of household Kerosene in the country to the pressure of demand and supply.
The NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja that the price of the product had been deregulated.
“The point remains that the prices of the kerosene is deregulated.
“It is not as controlled with reference to Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) known as Petrol, that is why we see the prices moving up and down.
“The important thing is that the trend you are seeing there had to do with supply and demand. The more the demand, the higher the price locally,’’ he said
Ughamadu said that the NNPC remained the sole importer of the product and had been augmenting it with the skeletal production from the refineries.
He reiterated the commitment of the corporation to the adequate supply of petroleum products for Nigerians.
“The corporation is doing everything to ensure that we import more volumes of kerosene because, we believe that this is the energy source that the low-income earners in the country use,’’ he added
A check by NAN in some outskirt of the Federal Capital Territory indicated that the price of Kerosene ranged between N400 and N500 per litre.
NAN reports that most filling stations along the Kubwa express road, Dutse, and Zuba hardly sell the product.
Most of the consumers buy the products from the roadside.
At Dutse market, the price was N400 per litre while within Kubwa it is sold between N450 and N500 per litre.
Mrs Halima Saidu, a seller at Kubwa village market, told NAN that she buys from filling stations at different prices.
“I sell at N450 per litre now but if I buy at a higher price at the filling station, I will sell above that,’’ she said.
It will be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its National Household price watch in June said the average price per litre paid by consumers for Kerosene increased to N316.43 in June 2 from N315.91 in May.
The NBS said the price of kerosene increased by 0.17 per cent month-on-month and 13.14 per cent year-on-year in the period under review.
The report said states with the highest average price per litre of kerosene were Anambra at N381.25; Abia, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom N356.67 and Enugu N352.78.
Customs seizes N5 billion codeine, tramadol
The strike force of the Controller General of Customs on Friday raided a warehouse in Lagos where cartons of codeine, tramadol, and other illegal drugs worth N5 billion were kept.
The warehouse, located along the Mile-Oshodi expressway, was raided after a trailer load of the hard drugs was intercepted at Maryland in Lagos.
Usman Yahaya, team leader of the Customs Strike Force Zone A, said the trailer was intercepted around 2 a.m. on August 13 by his operatives.
“Immediately it was brought to our notice, we carried a preliminary investigation that led to the discovery of a warehouse along Oshodi-Mile 2 road stocked dreaded tramadol, codeine and other unregistered pharmaceutical products without NAFDAC numbers”.
He said that after evacuating the warehouse of the hard drugs with street value of N5 billion, one suspect was arrested.
“The warehouse was immediately sealed with a detachment of well armed officers to guard the place”.
“The drugs estimated to be loaded in 21 trailers with street value of over five billion Naira are being evaluated for custody and subsequent judicial process/destruction.”
Three weeks ago, the agency in collaboration with the National Administration of Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) destroyed 48 by 40feet of controlled drugs worth N146billion at a destruction site in Ogun State.
“We therefore call on well meaning Nigerians to support the Nigerian Customs Service on this patriotic resolution”.
Inflation gets low in July – NBS
The average change in the prices of foods and services reduced in July compared to June, the statistics bureau, NBS, has said.
According to the NBS, the Headline Inflation reduced to 11.08 per cent in July from 11.22 per cent in June.
The Food Inflation reduced from 13.56 per cent in June to 13.39 per cent in July while the Core Inflation reduced from 8.84 per cent in June to 8.80 per cent in July.
CBN outlines new guidelines to banks
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it has released guidelines for the disbursement of lower denominations of the Naira through microfinance banks (MFBs) across the country.
The bank’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Isaac Okorafor, made this known in a statement in Abuja on Thursday.
Okorafor said this development was contained in a circular issued by the Director, Currency Operations Department of the bank, Mrs Patricia Eleje, in Abuja on Thursday.
He explained that the circular indicated that all microfinance banks must have a Composite Risk Rating (CRR) of above average in the most recent Risk Based Supervision (RBS) target examination before they were considered for the scheme.
He explained that the measure was to ensure that only MFBs with good corporate governance practices took part, NAN reports.
“Meanwhile, the participating MFBs must be willing to accept a mixture of new and other banknotes, and that the MFBs shall give 20 per cent of any withdrawal in lower denomination notes subject to a maximum of N50,000.
“Where beneficiaries withdraw more than once in a day, the circular said that disbursement will only apply to one transaction per day.
“Similarly, the MFBs are allowed to exchange notes subject to a maximum of N50,000 for customers with bank accounts and N10,000 for customers without bank accounts.
“In that situation, the banks must not exchange for same beneficiaries more than once a week,” he added.
According to him, MFBs are to maintain a register of amounts received from the CBN through their correspondent commercial banks.
Okorafor said the MFB must also maintain another register of the beneficiaries of the lower denomination notes as well as ensure that withdrawal teller slips contain breakdown of the denomination of the currency to customers with accounts.
“The circular also warned MFBs against hawking, hoarding or using of funds obtained under the intervention for any other purpose.
“It also instructed the banks to put in place effective control measures that will ensure that banknotes disbursed to customers with or without accounts are not sold.
“Furthermore, the circular directed the banks to render weekly and monthly disbursement return to CBN branches where the intervention would be monitored periodically, and appropriate sanctions applied to erring MFBs,” he said.
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Juniper Networks has launched its first range of enterprise routers, which it says will enable companies to run services that need guaranteed low latency such as IP telephony.
The J-series of routers use a subset of the Junos software that runs inside more powerful Juniper routers used by some major telcos. Junos is modular, and Juniper says this helps to give better quality of service to companies who use a J-series router.
"This is the first time that we've launched routing products that operate at the edge of the customer's network in the customer's premises," said Benjamin Ellis, Juniper's European product manager.
The entry-level J2300 Services Router, which will cost around €2,000, is aimed at a medium-sized office environment. It will support an uplink of 8Mbps and has one primary and one expansion slot. These slots can be filled with cards for network types such as Ethernet and DSL.
The J4300, costing around €4,000, is meant for branch offices. It supports a 16Mbps uplink and comes with six open slots.
The top-end J6300 router, at between €8,000 and €10,000, also has six open slots and can support an uplink of up to 90Mbps.
Juniper has also updated its NetScreen 5GT gateway to include an ADSL modem. According to Ellis, this means that companies can buy this product rather than using an ADSL modem and a separate firewall. The 5GT gateway offers a range of security features, including stateful and deep-packet inspection and protection from virus and denial-of-service attacks.